


A Worm's Tale

by TheQuantumQueer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-23 12:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7462902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQuantumQueer/pseuds/TheQuantumQueer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of a boy who attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.</p>
<p>It is not the story of a hero, but neither is it the story of a villain. It is simply the story of a man. A man who gave everything he had and found that it wasn’t enough. A man who failed his friends. A man who lived just long enough to see them all die hating him.</p>
<p>This is the story of Peter Pettigrew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Worm's Tale

When he stood in Hogwarts’ Great Hall in 1971, waiting to be sorted, Peter already knew a great many of the names and faces of the children who stood around him. He couldn’t count a single one of them as his friends, though. He had always been content to be by himself, quietly immersed in some fantastic story or another, and had never felt any great need to open himself to the mockery of other children when there was always some new friend on the next page who would never be anything but kind to him. So it was with the confidence of a certain outcome that he strode forward to sit on the little stool and wait for the Sorting Hat to put him into Hufflepuff.

“My, my, aren’t we a bit ahead of ourselves?” said a voice as soon as the Hat touched his head. “Think you know yourself so well as all that, do you?”

“I haven’t got much of anyone else to know, now have I?” Peter retorted. “Can we get on with this?”

“Quite a wit you’ve got there,” the Hat replied, “but it’s been some time indeed since I’ve seen a mind that didn’t flinch away from me. And combined with such confidence in your decision... I know how much you hate to be wrong, boy, but you’re going to GRYFFINDOR!”

When the shouted final word rang out, the cheer from the far left table didn’t quite mask Peter’s howl of laughter. Shaking his head and grinning, he strode to the table second from the right.

“Oi, mate!” someone called out, their footsteps clapping toward him on the marble floors. “Our table’s over here!”

Peter turned, surprised to find himself taken by the arm by a boy with the most absurd tangle of black hair he had ever seen and led to the table that had cheered for him.

“Mr. Potter!” Professor McGonagall, her face less hardened but her emerald robes no less striking than they would be a short generation later, brandished the Sorting hat at the boy in a way that would have been comical if it had not been so utterly terrifying. “You will let the Hat sort you, or I will sort you myself!”

With the nimbleness of a born athlete, the boy ducked toward the professor and popped his head into the hat as she waved it at him.

"GRYFFINDOR!" it shouted in an instant, and just as quickly the boy was back at Peter's side. "I'm James," he said, putting his thumbs to his temples to wave his fingers at his new Head of House, then hurriedly dragging Peter to the table.

James Potter had left Minerva McGonagall speechless. That would not happen again for another ten years.


End file.
